


The Queen Of Ashes or Shorts From A Story Yet Written

by Thebookishminer



Series: The Queen Of Ashes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Cecil Brackenridge & Lyra Brackenridge, Cecil Brackenridge/Pandora Claymore, Character Death, Childbirth, Death, Drama, Ellaria Brackenridge nee Claymore/Cecil Brackenridge, Elliot Ridge & Cecil Brackenridge, Elliot Ridge & Pandora Claymore, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fluff, Freya Jenson nee Wraith/Astor Jenson (dead), Gwendolyn Darcey/ Freya Jenson nee Wraith, Hope, Josephine Wraith nee Jenson/Levi Newfield, Love, M/M, Maximus Claymore/Loretta Claymore nee Ormond, Mentions of miscarriage, Murder, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Other, Piers Wraith & Freya Jenson nee Wraith, Princes, Princess - Freeform, Queens, Rivalry, Romance, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, kings - Freeform, wife - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-26 03:57:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20383294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebookishminer/pseuds/Thebookishminer
Summary: In a world were nothing is truly promised, how does one stay alive?A collection of one shots from a book I'm working on called The Queen of Ashes.





	1. Rage

Ellaria stormed through the throne room doors, her red dress billowing behind her, Her black raven hair bouncing in time with each of her step. Her heels slapped harshly against the marble floor, filling the air with wrathful clicks warning of an oncoming storm. A warning that the man on the throne didn’t seem to recognize as he startled from his seat as the double doors slammed against the walls behind them, His dark crown tipping off his head, sitting slanted on his brow.

It made her even angrier.

He knew she would find out, so why did he look so shocked and fearful. Ellaria was nearly rabid in her rage, Was she not a good wife? A good Queen? Had she not done her duty and bore him an heir. She had done everything she could for her husband and his country, She had betrayed her Father, bartering away half of her family's kingdom. She had made a deal with the devil incarnate, and this is how he thanked her? By setting their first born aside?

She had given him an heir. Her little star, Lyra, born too early and yet against all odds she lived. Lyra was a golden child her Father's looks but with all of her Mother's cunning wit. Lyra was made by the gods to be Queen and anyone with a sane mind could see it. Lyra at only age seven was already smarter than most of the adults at court, Ellaria had made sure of it. Her little Lyra had been groomed to be Queen and now it was being ripped away from her, by her own Father. 

How dare he even think it? And what of the shame he brought about upon his house by this action? On Ellaria?

He was trying to put his bastard son on the throne. A bastard son born from her very own Sister. 

She had given Pandora everything, She had saved her when their Fathers kingdom was crumbling to sand beneath his feet and he had no way to protect his last remaining daughter. She had provided everything Pandora would ever need and this was how she thanked her? By getting herself pregnant with her sisters husband? 

She wanted to scream but she couldn’t, to show such a weakness to an enemy would get her killed, because that’s what her husband was now, an enemy. So instead she stopped several paces away from him and stared him down, waiting for him to say something, anything to explain the mockery he had made of her and their daughter. 

“So you heard?” He asked, looking only a little guilty “ It really is for the best, you know the kingdom would never accept a Queen reigning in her own right.”

Ellaria saw red.  
“Better a legitimate Queen in her own right than a bastard born from the Queen's sister” Ellaria bit out through clenched teeth. “ How dare you take away Lyra’s birthright to some weak pup you managed to sire off my bitch of a sister” 

Cecil looked as though he wanted to protest but Ellaria cut him off before he even got the chance to utter a word. 

“I gave up everything for you, I gave away my families freedom for your kingdom and this is how you wish to repay me?” She was picking up steam now, her talking getting faster with every word she spoke. “ I was promised that my blood would be on the Brackenridge throne and you dare try to take back what has been a done deal for decades? I have been your Queen for nearly ten years now and yet you seem to think you can put me aside like Lyra does one of her dolls.” 

The silence in the room was a stark difference to the cutting words being delivered.

Cecil stood, his face almost as red as Ellaria’s scarlet dress. His hands were up in a weak gesture of defeat.

“ Don’t you understand that your blood will be on the throne? It may not be our child but this son will be of the Claymore blood and as such he will take care of Lyra should either one or both of us pass.” He was trying to calm her down and he was failing miserably. “I understand that this isn’t ideal but I need a son, someone I can pass the throne to after I’m dead and not have to worry of war plaguing our land.”

He was in front of her now, close enough to grab her hand, which he did. He uncurled her tightly clenched hand and saw the blood from where her sharp nails pierced her skin. 

“So you laid with my sister to ensure this?” Ellaria ground through her teeth with barely restrained fury “You humiliate Lyra and I in front of the entire court with my sister in order to prevent war?”

Cecil must have missed the tensing of her shoulders as she said this for his next words sent her over the edge. 

“ So you understand that I had too?” He said hopefully, as though that it made it all better.

Ellaria ripped her hands away from him, reared back and slapped him with such ferocity that the sound of her hand hitting his face echoed through the room and into the high ceiling. Her nails had left three scratches by the high arch of his cheekbone, the scratches leaked blood that trailed down his face at a sluggish speed until it reached the blood left from Ellaria’s hand on the lower part of his cheek. 

She turned and walked toward the doors before stopping right before the handles and turned her head and she uttered the words that would come to wreck him later in his life.

“My daughter will me Queen, make no mistake of that.”

And with that she walked out of the room.


	2. Freya Jenson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to meet Freya Jenson nee Wraith and learn more about her past!!!

The day his grace, the Duke of Jenson, died, his Lady Wife shed no tears

Many women broke down sobbing at the death of their husband, But the Dowager Duchess Freya Jenson was not raised for that. The Wraith women were raised to only show emotion when there was gain. The Dukes death mattered little in the grand scheme of things. 

In all truth, Freya never liked her husband. Astor Jenson was the kind of man who enjoyed his whiskey more than he could ever enjoy anything else. 

Astor was for lack of a better word, an alcoholic, and a mean one too.

When he was deep in his cups, Astor had a tendency to hit the women in his life, and with Freya being his wife she often took the brunt of his fury. She covered bruises with long white lace sleeves and hid cuts to her face with carefully placed pieces of hair in ways that only a skillful women ever could.

The children were kept away from it of course. 

Little Axel and his sister, Ethelind were always kept far away from their father at all times. 

They had too much of the Wraith looks, too much of their mother's looks, to ever be loved by a man like that. They had the fiery hair and the fiery spirit that often came with her family's heritage and they held Freya’s heart in their chubby fists. 

She had tried to not love them, they were nothing more than pawns in the eyes of their ambitious father and uncle. Pawns were meant to be married away at the earliest moment and to the highest bidder, pawns were not meant to be loved and Freya knew that. Freya herself was once a pawn, sold away at the young age of fifteen to a man ten years her senior, a man so cruel he made the devil shiver. 

She had detested the small creatures when they were growing inside of her like a parasite. They were forgein beings, little monsters that would be doted on by their father in a way that she was and that made her jealous. 

It was petty, looking back now, to be jealous of children not even born, but she was sixteen at the time and the thought of children born from her being more loved than she ever was scared her. It was when they slithered out of her, one after another, that she realized just how ridiculous she had been.  
Her perfect twins, Her little prince and princess, looked as she did. Bright flaming hair that curled up the minute it was wet, and blue eyes, bright in the way only babies eyes can be. She fell in love on sight. 

Astor was furious. He raged and spit at her but he could not hit her, The midwife was there.

Freya often wonders if the only reason she’s alive today was the presence of the midwife. Astor did not care if everyone knew how he belittled her, but he did care if it got back to Freya’s family if she was injured by her husband. 

She really had that midwife to thank for the events of what happened next. 

She was twenty years of age when she birthed her third stillborn, and the same midwife that helped bring her beautiful children into the world only four years ago was the same one to deliver their silent sibling.

It was Ingrid who helped her come up with a plan. 

It was Ingrid who held her that night as she wept from the pain of losing a child and the pain of the beating her husband gave her for her failure.

It was Ingrid who gave the poison.

It was Ingrid who urged her to do it.

So she did.

Freya, in the dark of night, slide into her husbands study, opened the decanter of wine set out for the next day, and poured in the too large dose of silent sleep.

It was Freya, who with pleasure, watched as her husband choked on his own breath the next morning

It was Freya who whispered in his ear in his final moments.

It was Freya who took back her life.

And while Freya would have to put up an act for the months to come, Freya had freed herself for the rest of her life.

And Freya would never regret that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So day two!!!! I wrote this one on my lunch break, I also have not hardcore edited it so any mistakes are purely mine and mine alone. The next chapter I'm working on is about Duchess Gwendolyn Darcey, a mysterious woman with many a secrets. Let me tell you these two (as in Freya and Gwen) are my favorite people to write so far. Anyway thanks for reading don't forget kudos and comments, feed my narcissism please she's hungry.


	3. Gwendolyn Darcey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A character study of Gwendolyn Darcey, A Duchess with a secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for miscarriage, Infant death, and just death in general I think I killed off at least 7 different people so proceed with caution.

Gwendolyn Darcey had always known she wasn’t what her father had wanted as an heir.

For one thing Gwen was a girl and as society dictated was not worthy of becoming a Duchess in her own right. It was always preferable for a male to inherit the role, no matter if it was a direct descendant or a cousin several times removed. 

Gwen thought that was bullshit.

Luckily for her, She had no male cousins, At least no male cousins that still held the Darcey name, and her father would never allow the Darcey Duchy to be tainted by an heir from another family. To her father there was only one thing worse than having a girl as an heir, and it was having another family taking over what he and his forefathers had worked so hard to build from the ground up. 

So there she was, moments after her father’s death, a Duchess. 

Oh, and did she ever love the sound of that.

She no longer had to listen to her father spit venom at her, she finally would never have to hear how he wished she had been born a girl or worse how he wished she had died with her mother.

It was those words that got to her the most. 

She would like to think her mother loved her so much that she was willing to die for a babe she hadn’t even met yet. Gwen would like to think that, in the moments before her death, her mother had caught a glimpse of her and died proud that she bore a strong child that would one day be her legacy, but Gwen knew that if her mother had thought anything before her death it was probably that she didn’t want to die. 

Would her mother have wanted her to be a son?

Gwendolyn tried not to dwell on her birth too much but it was hard. She only ever saw bits of her mother when she looked in the mirror and it was never enough for the motherless child. 

Her father had tried to have a son, he was married four more times before he finally gave up. Serafina had been a sweet child, and a child she was. Only sixteen but pushed into a marriage she didn’t want to a man she didn’t love. Gwen was seven when they married, if she thought very hard she could almost remember they way Lady Sera had played dolls with her. Serafina had gotten pregnant not even three months into marriage, her too large bulge of a stomach made her already stick then frame seem even smaller. She was sickly when she went into labor and there was already a sense of mourning in the manor. She died, bleeding out after the birth of her stillborn twins, both male, her father was furious. Another wife lost to the birthing bed and no son to show for it, So he married again after the mourning period was over. 

His next wife wasn’t as nice. Olivette was a mean spirited, money hungry wench, and at only eight years old Gwen decided that if she ever got married and had stepchildren that she would be the very opposite of Olivette. Olivette took the longest to get pregnant but within two years she was soon to be the new mother of a bouncing baby boy, her labor was also the longest. Olivette labored for three days and it was at the end of the third day that doctors realized that the child was stuck. When given the choice between his wife and their baby, he chose the babe, so they cut. Gwen could still remember Olievette’s screams that night, high and piercing. She could remember even better the moment those screams stopped and instead was replaced with the weak, thin cries of her new baby brother. Her father named the boy Godric, and it was the sweet victory of finally having a son that made his death hours later even worse.

Gwendolyn was twelve when her father married for the third time, This time to wild Adeline. Adeline got pregnant not even a month into marriage, she swelled too big much to fast but her father looked past those signs, happy just to have the prospect of a son. It was when she gave birth four months early to a very strong boy, a very strong white boy that the realization hit Gwen’s father. Adeline was three months pregnant before they ever met each other and had tried to pass off her affair with the stable boy as a legitimate son. Adeline was sent back to her father in shame and they were promptly divorced. 

The last time her father married, Gwen was sixteen. Belinda was older than the rest of his wives, only 25 at the time of their marriage while her father was already pushing the bounds of fifty, and their marriage was one of heartbreak after heartbreak. Belinda had several miscarriages before she even bore a live child. The only child she would ever have to make it out of the womb was a girl. The babe lasted longer than any of Gwen's other siblings but the babe still died three months into life. 

It was only after Belinda died that he realised his obsession with having a male son was futile, Gwen personally thought it was because he actually felt something for his fifth wife.

It was then that he started to look at Gwendolyn as his proper heir, and it was then, on his deathbed that he invested her with the Darcey Duchy and told her it was her job to raise the family higher.

And higher she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard to write. I don't know why cause I already knew exactly who she was even before I even knew what her name was but then I started writing it just wouldn't come out. Usually I can knock out one of these character one shots out in an hour or less but this one took me three different sittings over the span of 6 hours. Anyway hope you enjoyed please kudos and comment to feed my narcissism, she's hungry and needs to be fed. once again nothing has been hardcore edited so any and all mistakes are purely on me.


	4. King, Poet, Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three best friends!!!!! sorta.
> 
> This chapter was inspired by the song Soldier, Poet, King by the Oh Hellos. I switched the king and soldier parts to better fit the flow of the story so please don't yell at me.

“There will come a ruler whose brow is laid in thornes”

Cecil had been destined to be King since before he was born, that much was known. 

His parents had often wondered if he would be a good and just King like his father and forefathers. 

His Mother worried how he would take to life as King. It was often difficult to rule over an entire country and so many Kings before him had gone down the road of madness and were killed for it.

His Father worried about the line of succession to the point the worry became obsession. He and his wife had only had one child, their darling Cecil, but it wasn’t enough. Life was fragile in this cruel world and if his son were to die then the whole country would be flipped upside down by civil war.

Cecil was married to Ellaira at fourteen in the hopes of an heir but it wasn’t until Cecil’s Father died two years later when they were sixteen that Ellaria fell pregnant. 

Cecil and a heavily pregnant Ellaria were crowned in front of 30,000 people and within three days of their coronation the newly anointed Queen gave birth too early to a sickly babe. 

A sickly female babe.

But against all odds their little star, their Lyra lived, and became the first in line for the throne until a son could be born.

But a son was never born, and so Cecil adopted his Father's obsession with needing an heir, and in turn that obsession became madness.

In trying to stop a civil war, Cecil managed to create one. 

He fell into madness, spiral so far down until even his closest friends didn't recognize. 

It was when Levi and Ashfield left him that he began to lose everything.

“There will come a poet whose weapon is his word”

Ashfield had always had a way with words. 

His Father saw no use in words, only in fighting.

His Mother on the other hand was as cunning as they come and as such used her words as the weapons they were. She was, of course, the reason the Barrington rose so high in the court. It was thanks to her that her husband held the dukedom that would soon be her sons, so she passed the valuable lessons she learned about words down to her only son

Words were how Levi got himself into advantageous situations and out of trouble for getting into said situations. 

Words were how be became friends with the future King of Brackenridge at seven years old. 

Words were how he got his best friend to fall head over heels for him.

Words were how he saved his lover’s and his life when Cecil finally went over the edge into madness. 

Ashfield may have left the swords to Levi, but Ashfield wasn’t without his weapons

“There will come a soldier who carries a mighty sword"

Levi had always been the most physically powerful of the three of them.

His Father was a warrior, a knightly Marquess in his own right. He had taught all his children how to fight with no difference between genders. His eldest daughter was always the best at their fathers preferred weapon, the axe, while Levi always favored the long sword. 

His Mother was a warrior in her own ways. She was a skilled socialite, and could cut with her courtises. She passed these skills onto her children and Levi took to it like a duck to water. 

Levi used his Mother’s skills to befriend the future King of Brackenridge

Levi used his Father's skills to become a knight at thirteen.

And when Cecil finally fell into the madness he promised to protect the only person left in his life.

And so Levi, wrapped up in his lovers arms, whispered the words he knew Ashfield wanted to hear.

And they devised a plan.

“They will tear your city down…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter also gave me major writing block...   
But thankfully a wonderful cosplay to this song gave me some inspo so thanks @brittiekong on tiktok. Once again this has not been hardcore edited so any mistake are purely on me. Please Kudos and comment to feed my narcissism, She's hungry. Hope yall have a great day!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors, I finished Rage at about midnight so I'll probably wake up and regret everything I wrote! WOOOHOOO. Anyway I should update sometime soon so subscribe if you would like to read more at some point also remember to Kudos or comment it'll help to write if I know people are actually reading this! Ya'll have a great day, a good night, and sweet dreams.


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